Coronavirus Risks When Attending Events In Cuyahoga Couny

CLEVELAND — A new tool released this week could help Cuyahoga County residents gauge the chances of encountering someone who’s infected with the coronavirus at any event.

The new tool breaks down potential risk by county. As of Sunday, for an event with 100 attendees in Cuyahoga County, the estimated risk of someone in attendance being actively infected with the coronavirus is 81 percent.

As coronavirus cases increase across the United States, the risk of exposing yourself to the virus increases exponentially with event size, according to Georgia Institute of Technology biologist Joshua Weitz.

The COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool, developed by Georgia Tech and researchers at the Applied Bioinformatics Laboratory, hopes to help Americans better understand these potential risks.

The purpose of the tool is to estimate potential risk based on where you live. It adds another layer to the interactive dashboard that previously estimated only exposure risk for events by state.

“The issue of understanding risks associated with gatherings is even more relevant as many kinds of businesses, including sports and universities, are considering how to reopen safely,” Weitz said.

At a state level, the risk for residents of Ohio is 13 percent if attending an event with 100 people. It grows to 74 percent if the event has 1,000 attendees.

The tool, which is updated daily, incorporates data from a New York Times tally and the Covidtracking.com dashboard, a resource led by journalist Alexis Madrigal of The Atlantic. Both databases record confirmed case reports from state-level departments of public health.

To determine a county’s risk level, the tool taking into account the estimated number of asymptomatic cases where individuals have yet to be tested. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the actual number of people infected with coronavirus antibodies is about 10 times higher than actual confirmed and documented cases.

According to the dashboard’s website, the risk predictions further support the need for ongoing social distancing and protective measures.

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